


The Moth and the Flame

by beetle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Twins, Angst and Tragedy, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Girls in Love, Heavy Angst, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Oral Sex, Past Sexual Abuse, Pyromania, Schizophrenia, Sibling Rivalry, Sneaking Around, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:37:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Melitha Adaar recently landed in a mental health facility after a long downward-spiral that left her a danger to herself and others. On her second full day there, after being allowed out of her restraints, she’s confronted in the midst of severe dissociation by another patient: a chatty, crazy, boundary-lacking girl who gives new meaning to the words random . . . and empathy.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, implied child sexual abuse, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Melitha's second day at Eight Winds, she makes an acquaintance. Rather, an acquaintance makes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t _you_ look like the cat who drank the piss!”

 

The playful, lively voice and thick, Manchester burr—so like and _un_ like family and _home_ —caused the shaken, shocked, and rapidly dissociating young patient to stop rocking. She slowed to a tense, still hunch, knees still pulled up to her chest with long, strong arms wrapped around them. Her toes curled a little, in the paper slippers she’d been allowed—certainly not _real_ shoes, with real _laces_ to provide the only form of escape available to her, anymore—and she lifted her head, also slowly, turning toward the source of the voice, peering through a messy, frizzy curtain of near-black hair. Wide, bloodshot hazel eyes with pinprick pupils met another pair of wide, deep-set eyes—these, steely blue-grey, fringed by pale lashes, and surrounded by faint, grey-brown-circles in a pallid-under-its-peachy-complexion face—that were as playful as the voice . . . and mad, too boot. But flat and watchful, too, in a way that belied the carefree voice . . . and _curious_ , also. In a wary sort of way.

 

Unkempt, uneven cornsilk-hair that looked as if it’d been chopped with a dull and rusty hand-ax framed that pretty-loony face in a pixie-ish shape. Similarly-colored brows, fine and obliquely slanted, crowned those pretty-loony _eyes_. A pug, high-bridged nose, wide cheekbones, and full, pale-pink lips completed this new face.

 

That rosy, lovely mouth curved in a small, tense smile. “Whatsamatta, then? Nug got ya tongue?”

 

 _Nug? What in the bloody hell is a_ nug _?_

 

Blinking up at the strange girl blocking her view from the southeast corner of the Eight Winds Therapeutic Facility’s first floor community-room, Melitha Adaar licked her own lips, dry and chapped, and almost answered . . . _almost_ , but _didn’t_. She simply shifted and unfocused her gaze, and started to rock again, hastening what she _knew_ was her own dissociation. _Anything_ was better than being present in her own life.

 

The dappled sunlight shining through the barred windows made such hypnotic grey-gold shadow-patterns on the ugly, anemic-white walls. Shadows that one could sink into and lose oneself in for hours, perhaps. Or even _days_.

 

Maker knew Melitha meant to try, anyway.

 

“Now, now, none of that, Shiny!” the girl said, playful, still, but sharp, as well. She stepped into Melitha’s line-of-sight, blocking the dappled light and shadow, her face gone grim and solemn, but somehow . . . commanding. “No goin’ so far out y’ stuff y’self down-deep inside!” The girl paused, brow furrowing in thought before she smiled and snorted, loud and not terribly lady-like, then giggled like a drunken toddler. “Get it? I said _deep inside_. It’s funny, yeah? What with you bein’ all female and _ROAWRR_! Y’know?”

 

Frowning and blinking some more, irritation and confusion dragging her by the ankles, kicking and screaming, back out of her own detachment. She focused her pale, blank, semi-accusing gaze on the girl—the closest she could summon to her old glare, the one that’d used to cow the littles and get Talitha to pull her head out of her arse for long enough to consider the feelings of others before she acted.

 

“Oooh!” the girl before Melitha said, grinning and fake shuddering. “’S’at supposed to make me all chastened and respectful of your despair? Make me get up outta y’personal bubble and let you drift away in peace?” Another loud snort. “Ha! Fat chance!”

 

For a few moments, Melitha’s glare regained some of its old intensity, her eyes narrowing and mouth tightening in her keen, hawkish face. The girl giggled again, seeming delighted, that wariness leaving her entirely as she dropped gracefully into tailor-style, her knees just a hair’s-breadth away from brushing Melitha’s. She leaned forward, staring into Melitha’s eyes with that merry-mad, steel-blue gaze, her eyes seeming to whirl with the shift of light and shadow, thought and mood.

 

“Can’t _really_ tell how _ROAWRR_ ya are behind the hair, of course. It’s really _nice_ hair, after all, and it might just be that the hair’s makin’ ya look all regal and mysterious and tragic-like,” the girl mused propping her head up on her hand and her elbow on her bony right knee. “But I very-much-like what I _can_ see. Got a face like a lost and wounded falcon, you have, well-regal and strong.”

 

Melitha’s mouth dropped open and again, nothing came out. Except for an exasperated huff.

 

Wedging herself as deep into the corner as she could, she leaned her head back and regarded the girl with suspicious eyes that grew blurry with tears even as she did. She estimated the girl’s age to be somewhere between nineteen and twenty-two. Which would put her in Cassandra’s age range.

 

Well . . . the age range Cassandra _had been_ in, when the fire had happened . . .  when the older girl had gone back into the burning house, doing what _Melitha_ had been too weak and scared to do. . . .

 

Melitha didn’t realize she was absently rubbing the long, ugly swath of burn-scars that covered her left hand and arm up to the elbow, until the girl’s dancing, hectic gaze drifted to Melitha’s arm, too, lingering there.

 

Her own gaze following the girl’s, Melitha stopped rubbing her forearm, letting her hand slide up to her bicep and scratching as if she had an itch. She knew, of course, that she was fooling no one, least of all the crazy girl with the canny eyes, who was smirking as if she could read Melitha’s every intention. But it was habit to draw attention away from the tight, twisting scar tissue she’d lived with for almost six years, as a badge of shame and a reminder of the fate she should have suffered and _would_ have suffered if life and the universe were remotely fair.

 

The loony-girl was still watching her intently.

 

“What’re _you_ staring at, loony?” Melitha demanded in a harsh croak, her low, slightly rasping voice gone even raspier from lack of use—or perhaps because the _last_ time she’d used it, a day ago, had been to scream her head off as she fought her captors: the security staff at Eight Winds. All under the cruelly benevolent gazes of Chief of Security Greag Templar, and the co-directors of the facility, Drs. Anders and Giselle.

 

The girl sitting far too close to Melitha made a weird face—scrunched up and amused—before actually laughing. “Starin’ at y’scars. And y’ _guns_ —you’re all muscle-y and strong-lookin’ . . . bet you could carry me on y’shoulders!”

 

“That will never happen.” Melitha made her voice as forbidding as she could, her eyes as cold and mean as she ever had. But the girl merely waved a dismissive, fine-boned hand which looked strong, nonetheless. And precise.

 

“Never is a promise the universe’ll always make ya break,” she said solemnly, regretfully. “Old bat trots that out so often, you’d think she was gettin’ a kick-back every time she said it.”

 

“Riiiight,” Melitha drawled in the deadest of dead-pans. “Fascinating and good to know.”

 

“Ah, shut it, Shiny,” the other girl muttered, scowling down at the collar of Melitha’s shirt—which was just a standard-issue grey t-shirt that stretched across her broad shoulders, muscular arms, wide and tapering torso, and bra-less breasts.

 

The bra-less breasts which the crazy-girl was staring at with wistful, almost glazed eyes.

 

Melitha cleared her throat and those whirling eyes met hers, enhanced by a madcap grin with sharp, small teeth. “What? I was just—it’s not what ya thinkin’!”

 

“Right.”

 

“I was just starin’ at y’tits!” the girl said earnestly, making the sign of the cross for some reason, her loony eyes gone wide and sincere. “Honest! That’s all!”

 

Melitha’s mouth dropped open. Closed, then fell open again. But at least this time, words managed to tumble out. “If—wait—if _that’s_ what you’re _admitting_ to, then what in the bloody hell did you think _I_ thought you were doing?”

 

The girl was the one to blink this time, seeming nonplussed . . . and her face went bright pink. “I . . . em. Flowerpot?”

 

“ _What_?!” Talking with this girl was making Melitha feel even crazier than she felt most days, and that was saying something. The girl laughed, throaty and wicked.

 

“Oh, you’re fun, you! All . . . tryin’ t’act proper, even though you’re as barkin’ as me!”

 

“I doubt _anyone_ in this place is as . . . _barkin’_ as you.” Melitha sniffed.

 

“Awww . . . don’t _you_ know how to turn a girl’s head with compliments and such?” Those pretty-daffy eyes scanned Melitha openly, lingering again at breasts before resettling on her face. Then that grin turned into a smirk. “‘Ppears you’re more than just a double handful and a face I’d like to sit on. Wink-wink.”

 

Gaping again, Melitha blushed and sputtered. “You’re—this conversation is sheer madness! And I speak in full cognizance of where I am and what company I’m forced to keep!” She braced her hands against the wall and stood up shakily—how long she’d been in the corner, she had no idea, only that the sky had been dark when she’d first wandered in and was now on the way to being dark again. Sunset was about to set the sky afire. . . .

 

Wincing, Melitha looked away, her arm and soul _burning_ at the suggestion and memory of fire that’d seemed to lick and scorch the sky. She found herself staring down into those crazy, steely eyes as they gazed up at her admiringly.

 

“You’re a tall pint o’ bitter,” the girl noted with wry approval. Melitha was the one to snort, now.

 

“Truer words were never spoken. Now, get out of my way.”

 

The girl leaned both elbows on both knees and her head in both hands, staring up at Melitha like she was telly: enrapt and mesmerized.

 

“Don’ want to, do I? Kinda enjoyin’ the view.” Tilting her head a little to the left and biting her lip, the girl eyed Melitha’s chest again. “‘S a bit chilly in here for you, I take it?”

 

For a few moments, Melitha could only continue to scowl in utter confusion at the unprompted change of subject. Then, she followed the girl’s gaze, turned scarlet, and crossed her arms over her chest.

 

“Look, get out of my way before I step on you!” she threatened, lifting her right foot. The girl didn’t so much as shift, her amused eyes twinkling and almost fond.

 

“‘M not _that_ small!”

 

“That’s your take-away from me threatening to step on you?”

 

“Eh.” Another dismissive wave, and the girl unfolded to her feet, graceful as origami and just as delicate-looking. She was slender—bordering on skin and bones, but for her own chest, and what Varric would’ve called ‘child-bearing hips’—and barely came up to Melitha’s arm-covered breasts. “I can tell when it’s _real_ threats, and when it’s just bullshite bluffs. You’re _easy_ to read: I reckon if y’ever wanted to step on me _for-real_ , Tadwinks, y’wouldn’t warn me, yeah? It’d just be me goin’: _blah-blah-blah_ , then _splat_!” Another raucous laugh then the girl eyed Melitha with serious consideration. “How tall’re you, anyway? I’m five-feet, even. You must be—what? Eight-and-a-half?”

 

“I’m not a bloody lamppost!” Melitha scoffed, somewhat offended. “I’m only six-three.”

 

“ _Only_ , she says. Oh, Shiny,” the girl murmured off to her left at first, at someone _Melitha_ couldn’t see. Then she was turning her weirdly fond gaze back to Melitha. “How pretty are _you_ that so much up-your-own-arse-ness is less _annoying_ and _more_ . . . adorable?”

 

Rendered speechless again, Melitha could only watch as the girl tilted her head to her left again, at a listening angle, then nodded in thoughtful agreement, her eyes never leaving Melitha. “You’re right, of course. Can’t lie for shite, you. Dunno what it says about _me_ , I believed you all those years.” Then the girl was reaching up hesitantly, coming up on her tiptoes just as slowly. As that pale, slim hand neared Melitha, she leaned back till she was pressed against the wall again. The girl tsked. “Lookit you . . . like some poor, scared, wild-thing, backed into your corner, all feral and lashin’ out at the hand tryin’ t’ be kind. . . .”

 

“There—” Melitha had to resist the urge to bare her teeth and snarl. She couldn’t look away from that fine hand with its incongruously bitten-down nails. “There _are_ no kind hands. Not for me. Not anymore.”

 

“You’re a nutter, if you believe that. Right-mental,” the girl said reasonably as her fingertips brushed a mussy hank of Melitha’s cavewoman-hair and . . . brushed it out of Melitha’s face. Then she leaned forward a bit as if to get a closer look, smiling a pleased and approving smile. “I suppose _that’s_ how pretty you are. Ten out of ten: would gaze five-ever.”

 

“What? You’re—exasperatingly random and almost ragingly incoherent!” Melitha declared, more confused and rattled than angry. Which only made her sound all the angrier. She flapped the girl’s hand away, resisting the brief, but easily-overridden urge to swat it hard enough to sting. “Why don’t you go be completely batshit someplace where I’m _not_?”

 

The girl’s eyes flickered for a moment, the hurt there as easy to read as a large-print novel. Then those eyes narrowed and the girl smirked, hard and defensive.

 

“ _Thaaaaat’s_ it, Buckles . . . open arse, insert head. There’s the way of it!”

 

And with that, the infuriating and insane girl turned on her heel and marched off, narrow shoulders drawn up, spine ramrod-straight. Despite herself, Melitha couldn’t help but note that, slimness aside, the girl’s _arse_ was delightfully ample, neither too big nor too small—at least not according to Melitha’s tastes—and helped make the girl’s shape officially an hourglass one.

 

“And quit starin’ at my arse, you _ass_!” the girl snapped as she strode toward the doorless archway that led out of the otherwise empty community-room.

 

Chastened and blushing, Melitha’s eyes widened before her gaze darted away—to the comfort of dappled light and shadow she’d been losing herself in before. . . .

 

And, unwillingly, her eyes skittered, guilty and reluctant, back to the girl’s retreating figure just before it turned left past the archway. This time, her staring wasn’t just at the crazy girl’s crazy-perfect arse. And that wasn’t where her absent musing was wandering, either.

 

Instead, Melitha was thinking of the gentle way the girl had brushed her hair back out of her face . . . then looked up into her eyes as if seeing a long-lost and missed friend: all warm and welcoming and _happy_. . . .

 

No one (except for Merrill, briefly) had looked that way at Melitha ever. Not even _Talitha_. In fact, Tali had never looked at _anyone_ that way . . . she was the one everyone _else_ was always happy to see. Including and _especially_ Melitha.

 

It had been easy living in her identical twin’s shadow when that twin had cast such a very bright and alluring light. Melitha had never once known a jealous moment where Tali was concerned. Never once envied that her younger—by thirty-seven minutes—sister had always garnered the love and attention of everyone around them. Had never resented being little more than an afterthought in the minds and hearts of all who’d known them.

 

And then _Merrill_ had happened, and Melitha had finally had her own moment to shine . . . to be _first_ in someone’s mind and heart. It had been beautiful and intoxicating and . . . ultimately Melitha was the only one to blame for the way it’d all ended. Was the only one with whom the responsibility had always fallen. And it had been stepping out of her lifelong role that had upset everyone’s lives so disastrously. It had been thinking she could for once be the star of her own life . . . and maybe even someone else’s . . . that had led to the wreck and ruin of the past five years.

 

All Melitha’s fault. _All of it_.

 

And she would do well to remember that, and not go making calf eyes at pretty, loony girls with more compassion than common-goddamned-sense, just because they didn’t have the preservation-instinct’s the Maker gave a goose. It hadn’t ended well with Merrill and wouldn’t end well with this one, either.

 

Best to have nipped it in the bud before it even gave a _suggestion_ of becoming an occurrence.

 

Sighing, and alone, once more—the third-floor community room wasn’t, she’d been told yesterday evening, by an at-turns cryptic and friendly young lunatic known as “Cole” while she had laid drugged and restrained in her bed, the most popular gathering space in the facility—Melitha backed into her corner again. And though it was no longer as comfortable as it had _been_ —nor was the rocking as satisfying as _it_ had been—mere minutes ago, and had been for hours, she resumed her previous activity with all the relief of a former smoker picking up the habit again.

 

Focusing on the dappled light and shadow, then _un_ focusing—letting the flickering play and dance of contrasts, like the flames of a fire, unfocus _her_ —she drifted off again, to the place where none of it—least of all Talitha, the fire, the screams of the littles and the silence of the dead (Merrill included), and finally, her own cowardice—mattered at all.

 

TBC


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melitha returns from "the Fade" to find dinner, companionship, and confusing advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

That evening, when the dinner-chime rang discreetly over the PA system, Melitha had not moved from the corner—had, in fact, lost herself so deeply _in_ herself that by the time she was roused from her dissociative stupor somewhat, the community-room was dark, but for a tall lamp near a table on which there were decks of cards and an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.

 

The lamp hadn’t been on when Melitha had checked out of reality, however long ago.

 

Nor had there been what appeared to be a half-sandwich wrapped in a napkin—with a MacIntosh apple sitting on top of it—waiting patiently at Melitha’s long, narrow feet.

 

Blinking blearily, Melitha lifted a heavy hand, and absently wiped a trailer of drool from the corner of her mouth and from her chin and looked slowly around the room. It was, as usual, empty.

 

Uncoiling her right arm and scratching absently at the scar-marred skin on her left bicep, Melitha straightened one leg slowly, judderingly, nearly kicking sandwich and apple across the room. The muscles in her thigh and calf complained sluggishly, but soon fell silent. One thing Melitha had always been blessed with had been a yak-like constitution. Her body was rarely ill, rarely unwell, rarely anything less than ox-strong, bull-stubborn, and prepared.

 

Reaching out automatically to retrieve the triangle of napkin-wrapped sandwich-half and the apple, she transferred the apple to her left hand then grabbed the sandwich, instinctively unwrapping it to take a sniff.

 

Turkey and cheddar on pumpernickel. No mustard or mayo, but a slice of tomato, from the smell.

 

The first bite was a memory and the second was in the works before Melitha was cogent enough to ponder the deeper meaning of the appearance of the sandwich. Aside from the fact that she’d dissociated more successfully than she had in years, was the fact that she’d gone so deep into that place inside herself where nothing mattered and all was hazy dreaming or utter nothingness—Tali had always mockingly called Melitha’s occasional dissociation “crossing the Veil” or “going into the Fade” because, she’d claimed, that her twin seemed to cross a barrier no one could reach across and would sometimes _fade_ from notice while doing so—that she hadn’t noticed someone enter the room even peripherally, and leave food right in front of her.

 

It was a bit disturbing . . . or would have been, if Melitha wasn’t still numb.

 

The sandwich-half was gone and the apple being methodically devoured before it occurred to her to wonder who’d left it.

 

_Certainly, not the staff_ , she supposed rustily, the gears in her brain turning snailishly after nearly two days of no food and many different sedatives and other drugs. _I doubt they_ really _give a flying fart in space whether I famine or feast. Dr. Giselle is far too nice to be for real and Dr. Anders is far_ too _busy to notice anything that isn’t a catastrophe. And the people below them don’t get paid enough to care if I go hungry for another night._

 

Belching silently as she nibbled at the apple core with more appetite than she would have expected, Melitha couldn’t imagine who’d bothered to keep track of her, let alone bring her something to eat. Even putting her entire, cloudy mind to the issue didn’t resolve it.

 

It wasn’t that she _cared_ , per se . . . just that the mystery of it . . . _niggled_.

 

When the core was little more than seeds and stem, she wrapped it in the crinkled napkin and placed it next to her outstretched leg. Though she was reluctant to, she stretched the other one out, too, weathering its sullen protests until her stomach rumbled and grumbled around the food it was no longer used to. She leaned back into the corner, wedging her back in good, and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of velvet red-black dark, that darkness lifted to present a pale oval, blurry and small, but going clearer and larger as it seemed to move closer. It wasn’t long before the oval resolved into a pretty face, as wary and weary as it was mischievous and playful. Steel-blue eyes set deep in faint grey-brown circles twinkled at her, framed by an indifferently and poorly done pixie-cut, and slightly slanting pale brows and paler lashes. A mouth like a pink rosebud quirked in a sweetly wicked half-smirk that didn’t quite touch the tired, watchful eyes set above them. . . .

 

“I _told_ her you would be hungry when you came out of the Fade,” a soft, uncertain tenor said, startling Melitha into opening her eyes. Sitting in front of her, a pale, small young man sat _zazen_ , straw-like yellow fringe obscuring huge, ordinary-blue eyes that managed to take in Melitha candidly, curiously, without meeting her own gaze.

 

The patient known as _Cole_ tugged absently on his collar, worrying at a small hole on the right side, and smiled a little. Melitha frowned.

 

“What are you doing here, Cole? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Melitha cleared her throat, aware of the hoarse croak that’d worsened with more hours of not speaking or drinking anything. “Did _you_ bring me that san—wait.” Eyes narrowing in realization and suspicion, she leaned forward, suddenly more present in objective reality than she’d been in perhaps years. “Wait just a sodding minute—how do _you_ know about my— _the_ Fade?”

 

Cole tilted his head as if thinking. Or listening. Then he spoke, his soft voice slightly apologetic. “We should _both_ be in bed. So Dr. Giselle would say. Poor sleep is both symptom and cause of many mental hiccups. But I don’t sleep. I _never_ sleep. Sometimes . . . when I need to, I cross the Veil, into the Fade, like you do. It’s restful to me. And I have friends there.” That eerie, innocent smile widened. “Sometimes, they come back with me. But they don’t stay long. This place is too static and stagnant . . . hard and human. They miss the Fade and the other worlds which are reflected in it.”

 

Melitha blinked. “Er . . .  right,” she agreed hesitantly.

 

“But _I_ quite like this human world,” Cole went on almost shyly, as if confessing some failing. “I may miss the dwarves and Qunari. And the elves. But not the magic. That just made everything complicated and unhappy. This world—this _Earth_ —is unhappy, too, but far less complicated about it.”

 

“I’m certain you hear this a lot, Cole, but I have no bloody idea what you’re on about,” Melitha told him gently, not quite smiling. Despite being a bit creepy, Cole reminded her of one of the littles she and Tali and Cassandra had looked after before the fire. The ones who’d trusted the bigs with the entirety of their beings. . . .

 

Closing her eyes, and willing away the memories and pain, Melitha started when a cold, dry hand landed on her left knee.

 

“It’s not your fault, you know?” Cole said with a depth of compassion and kindness that surprised her. She opened stinging eyes, not bothering to catch or cover the tears that welled up and rolled down her cheeks. Cole’s gaze was almost meeting hers . . . resting somewhere between her eyebrows and hairline. “You didn’t set the fire. You didn’t harm the littles.”

 

Drawing in a breath that shook and shuddered, Melitha smiled bitterly. “But I didn’t help them, either, did I? Didn’t save them, didn’t protect them. I let them all die.” _Merrill and Cassandra, Krem and Grim, Stitches and Rocky, Dalish and Skinner . . . and Talitha. All dead because I let the mission slip. Because I let myself forget how_ she _could be and put my selfish desires ahead of my_ responsibilities _. . . ._

 

Cole’s naturally downturned mouth slipped into more of a frown, as if he could hear Melitha’s thoughts. “You were, yourself, only a child. A child’s only responsibility is to learn and grow and _become_.”

 

Melitha scoffed angrily. “I _wasn’t_ a child, I was a _big_!”

 

“You weren’t a _little_ , true. But neither were you a _big_ , yet. You were only sixteen.”

 

“I was old enough to look into myself and find a craven coward. One who let the people supposedly under her aegis die without even attempting to save them.” Melitha shook her head slowly, the tears falling faster and faster. “I claimed to love them. I liked to play the protector . . . especially with the littles . . . and then with Merrill, too. But where was I when it really counted? Hmm?” Laughing a quietly, she finally wiped her face, leaning her head back against the wall. “Cowering in fear on the Vincents’ lawn while Cassandra ran into a burning building to save the people _I’d_ sworn to protect.”

 

“You were injured and in shock. Young and scared.” Cole’s hand left her knee and when Melitha looked down at him, he’d spread his hands as if trying to prove himself nonthreatening. “Cassandra wasn’t any of those things, except young. But still, older than you.”

 

Melitha shook her head again, closing her blurring eyes. “You don’t understand. . . .”

 

“Perhaps I don’t,” Cole said with more than a touch of uncertainty and sadness. “I’m not very good at being human, yet. At least not in _this_ world. Not that I was good at it in Thedas, but I was _better_ , there. I think. My strangeness was _less_ strange in a place where _every_ normal thing was strange in some way, and so every strange thing was in some way _normal_.”

 

Melitha gaped at Cole for nearly a minute before sighing. “Alright, then. That’s . . . good to know. Thank you for the sandwich. And the apple.”

 

Cole blinked then smiled, wide and pleased. “Oh! You’re very welcome. But I didn’t bring them. Sera did.”

 

“Who’s Sera?” Melitha asked a moment before the face of the pretty-loony girl popped into her mind’s eye once more, adorable and wicked, crazy and weary.

 

Cole’s smile widened and, with a sudden and uncanny resemblance to the girl in question, he scrunched up his face and said: “Shut it, Shiny!”

 

Once more, Melitha’s mouth dropped open, and Cole laughed briefly, small and blameless, sweet and carefree, all hints of Manchester gone.

 

“It’s all so _exciting_! And comforting to know that even in a world so lacking in the magic others are _filled_ with to bursting, that _some magic_ —the _best_ magic—manages to find its way even here.” Cole nodded and got to his feet with only a slight stumble. Melitha looked up at him and didn’t have to look far—even with her sitting, Cole was small enough that she was still not much shorter than him—a million questions on the tip of her tongue. But none of them made any sense so, in the end, she just stayed silent. Cole laughed again. “Don’t worry, Melitha . . . Sera may be as prickly as she is pretty. Like a hedge of wild roses—all soft, pink sweetness and fierce thorns in dizzying profusion—but to know her is to love her, and to love her to is to bleed. Yet she’s worth every red drop. You knew it in Thedas and you’ll soon know it here, too. If, that is, you don’t let the Fade claim your spirit before Sera redeems it.”

 

And with that, Cole shrugged, smiled, and turned to leave. He was, in fact, halfway across the room when he paused and turned back, his face set in a thoughtful frown.

 

“But even True Love can sometimes be helped along with a well-timed _thank you_. You know. For sandwiches and apples given,” he said solemnly, before adding in a chipper tone. “Tomorrow is Thursday! We’re having cookies with lunch! They’re quite good!”

 

“I don’t like cookies,” Melitha said automatically. Cole shrugged again.

 

“ _Sera_ likes them, though. Except when they have raisins.” He started to turn away once more, then turned right back, grinning. “And the roof here is fenced-in, and not as high as the ones at Skyhold, but acceptable substitutes will resonate with you _both_ , if your hearts are open. You each have one foot beyond the Veil, and even if _you_ don’t remember the selves you once were, the _Fade_ remembers. The resonances and echoes of the Melitha Adaar and Sera Emmald who _once were_ will inform the women you are _now_ , and the women you _will_ _be_.”

 

Nodding once, seeming both satisfied and hopeful, Cole drifted out of the room, humming the theme from the old _Batman_ series, leaving Melitha to stare after him for long minutes, mouth still agape and mind still awhirl.

 

#

 

Eventually, grown bored of the empty community-room and unable to slip into the Fade again, Melitha levered herself to her feet and shuffled to the exit, binning the napkin and bits of apple core in the big rubbish container near the archway.

 

The third-floor hallway was dim, but lit well enough to navigate. Her tired legs and feet carried her to the east end of the corridor and the last room, therein.

 

It was small, but private—an expense Varric hadn’t spared in paying for her care, on top of shelling out for her stay at Eight Winds, at all—with a large, barred window that overlooked the front lawn and drive. Moonlight shone on the tranquil landscape and illuminated the Spartan room with gentle silver light. Melitha had never had much in the way of personal affects, beyond some books, her clothes, and random knick-knacks that’d caught her eye over the years. Most of the belongings she’d accumulated in the seven-plus years since the fire were stored in the live-in garage on Varric’s property, where she’d dossed on and off since right after she’d turned eighteen.

 

Here, in the posh funny-farm where he’d had her stashed—after _years_ of vacillating and arguing and occasionally _threatening_ to do so—she only had some clothing, a few of her books (three of which had been penned by none other than Varric), and the best gift she’d ever been given: a group photo from a few weeks before the fire, in which all the people she’d ever loved were present and accounted for, alive and well.

 

The littles were in front, Krem in his dirty and torn yard-clothes—the bigs knew to _never_ let Krem out to play in anything nice or worth wearing to school—with a grim-looking Grim in an enthusiastic headlock. Dalish and Skinner had their arms slung around each other, the former looking smug and impeccable in her little dress and bows, the latter grinning her fierce, toothy grin, neat and sedately-dressed in her overalls and blue blouse. Rocky, the smallest of the littles was in the center, arms akimbo and smiling up at the sky, while to his left, Stitches leaned solemnly on his crutches, his poor, broken left leg in its huge, signed and decorated cast.

 

Behind the littles, were the bigs: in the center were the tallest, Talitha and Melitha at a matching six-two. They also stood with arms slung around each other, the latter, for once, grinning, the former making a weird, unhappy face and caught mid-blink. To their right, next to Talitha, were Cassandra and her not-quite-boyfriend, Varric (though decidedly short, he was no little—nor a big, either. Not _anymore_ , anyway. He’d reached the age of majority the year prior along with Hawke, Aveline, and Isabela). To their right, next to Melitha, were Merrill, Cullen, and Cullen’s girlfriend, Josie.

 

The expressions on the Adaar-sisters’ faces were unusually swapped: normally, Talitha was the one grinning and happy, and Melitha was the one making the weird, awkward face. But at the time of this picture, _Melitha_ had had ample reason to smile, as evidenced by the way her hand was holding Merrill’s in the picture, linked tight like a promise. . . .

 

Melitha blinked and when she opened her eyes, dawn was shining in through the window, rose-gold near the horizon, indigo-blue near the apogee of Heaven’s vault. She was sitting on her narrow single bed, holding the framed picture of happier times in both her large hands—tight enough that those hands were white-knuckled. Tears were dripping on the glass of the frame, fallen from her chin and the tip of her nose.

 

She’d lost even _more_ time . . . wandering down Memory Lane, rather than dissociating. But Melitha wasn’t picky at all. Anything that hastened the end of her stay at Eight Winds and the end of . . . of _everything_ , especially the pain of just _existing_ , well . . . that was to be encouraged.

 

Sniffling through a foggy, stuffy nose that was running a bit, Melitha put the photo back on her small night-table, next to her empty water glass, a few of the generic toiletries she’d been given upon her admittance to the facility, and the small lamp she had yet to turn on.

 

For a few minutes—or what felt like it—Melitha thought of nothing and simply watched the sun rise higher in the sky. Then she blinked again, lingering in the dark of her own inner-space as she began to cross the Veil . . . to _Fade_. . . .

 

Maybe . . . maybe for _keeps_ , this time. . . .

 

A sudden, frustrated shriek from down the hall, followed by a woman’s distraught sobs, yanked Melitha back from her escape. Her eyes flew open to a much brighter room. The sun was fully up, the sky bright and blue, no remnants of night left to color the Heavens.

 

Judging by the scents drifting up from the first floor, breakfast was in full-swing. Melitha’s stomach rumbled angrily, tired of the now three-days fast. The homey scent of flapjacks, sausage, eggs, and porridge tempted and drew her physically, if in no other way. She was standing up before her brain could think of reasons not to, the Fade forgotten for the next little while as her body focused on acquiring fuel. That half-sandwich and apple had been at least eight hours ago.

 

As Melitha shuffled to the slightly ajar door to her room, she paused at the door catty-corner to it: the bathroom. Stepping into the doorway, she flicked on the light and winced at its fluorescent brightness. When her eyes adjusted, she was gazing at her reflection in the mirror bolted to the wall above the sink.

 

Her hawkish, strong-featured face was pallid, the last of her summer-tan fading to a pale-olive it’d rarely ever been, outdoors-person that she’d always been—some of her fondest memories were of tromping through the small, wooded acreage behind the Chantry Home for Children with Krem and Skinner, exploring and getting all mucky and manky . . . catching frogs at the tiny pond or chasing the rare and skinny rabbits—her eyes in dark circles and more bloodshot than ever. Her hair was a frizzy-flyaway mess, though not in her face, anymore. Not since the loony girl— _since Sera_ —had brushed it back for her. . . .

 

Shaking her head and ignoring the way the loony girl’s name struck a chord— _echoed and resonated_ —within her, both exciting and somehow familiar, Melitha’s reflection repressed a small, unsure smile. Then it ran a hand through dark, rat’s-nest hair, without getting very far before tangles forced it to give up. With a sigh, the reflection reached for the light switch and a second later, Melitha was stepping into the third-floor corridor—not once had Melitha or her reflection made eye-contact while they were primping—pasting a mostly blank, but vaguely hostile and sullen expression on her face.

 

(She’d heard once that the nut-hatch was rather like prison: Someone who was new would do well to either look as big and unfriendly, and mean and crazy as possible, or try to kill the first person who messed with them. Melitha had no intention of murdering anyone, and going to a _real_ prison for the rest of her life. And she certainly knew she wasn’t the _craziest_ person in Eight Winds, so she simply focused on looking mean and unfriendly. As for looking _big_ , well . . . nature had already handled that for her quite nicely.)

 

On her way to the stairs, Melitha passed a room near the main staircase, with a closed door and from behind which could be heard soft sobs and even softer speaking: Dr. Giselle’s patient, thickly-accented voice, comforting the woman who’d been screaming just a few minutes ago. Melitha knew nothing about that woman, only that she was pretty and sad, with old-soul blue-green eyes and chin-length ginger hair. And sometimes . . . sometimes, in the evening, she sang sad songs to herself in French.

 

Putting aside a momentary pang of empathy and curiosity—understanding and _solidarity_ —Melitha set her face in a scowl and made her way down to breakfast: a tall wall of solid muscle, heavy bone, and shit attitude . . . with a core as weak and crumbling as that of the sobbing woman behind the closed door.

 

TBC


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melitha makes a friend, has a visitor, and gets a stern talking-to . . . or something like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

Melitha lingered over her breakfast—well, her  _third_ plate of flapjacks, sausage, and eggs, though she was still on her _first_ bowl of the overly-sweetened porridge—well after most of the other patients had abandoned the relatively cozy meals-room.

 

Chewing methodically, barely tasting what she was eating, Melitha had plowed through her first two plates and the first third of the porridge. Now, finally feeling almost human and fuller than she had in what seemed like eons, she had slowed down and tried to taste what she was eating. The flapjacks were a bit dry as she loathed syrup, the sausages a bit more done than she preferred, the eggs slightly runny, and the porridge lumpy as well as too sweet, but it all tasted like manna from Heaven.

 

By the time Melitha, at her lonely corner table—at which she sat facing the door, as always—had cleaned her plate and was lazily stirring the porridge while staring into it, as if searching for signs and portents, when the only other chair at the table scraped back quietly and someone sat. Surprised, Melitha nonetheless resolved to ignore the newcomer who’d bypassed all the other, emptier tables in the room, to sit at hers. She didn’t look up or in any way acknowledge this audacious nuisance.

 

“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” a soft, musical, accented voice said rather shyly as the other person placed a bowl of porridge and a glass of milk on the table across from Melitha. A slim, graceful hand took a napkin from a small dispenser in the center of the table. “But I do, so, hate to dine alone, when it can be avoided.”

 

Melitha grunted, reluctant and resentful in equal measures, at this intrusion into her solitude, however polite and charming.

 

“My name is Leliana,” the newcomer said, holding out her hand. Melitha scowled at it for a few moments before darting a glance up at the woman.

 

It was the woman who slept in the single room near the third-floor landing. The one whom Dr. Giselle had been trying to comfort earlier, and to limited success. Indeed, despite the woman’s composed face, her eyes were puffy and red, her gaze distracted and sad.

 

_Not my problem_ , Melitha told the pang she felt, and looked back down into the depths of her porridge.

 

“And you are?” Leliana pressed gently when, a couple of silent minutes had passed without Melitha sharing her name or anything else.

 

Darting another glance up at the woman, Melitha caught a small, absent smile on her pretty, melancholy face. Those blue-green eyes were curious, now, more than they were sad. Staring into them, Melitha felt a frisson of déjà vu take her.

 

She had the distinct impression that she’d met this woman, this . . . _Leliana_ . . . before. And this, despite knowing that she never had.

 

(Melitha had only ever felt that way a relative few times in her twenty-three years: when she’d met some of her other year-mates at Chantry Home . . . Cassandra and Varric and Cullen—and even Cullen’s pretty, privileged girlfriend, Josie—as well as the littles that had come in over the few years before the fire. Starting with Dalish and ending with Krem.)

 

“Melitha,” she found herself saying breathlessly. That feeling of familiarity increased when the other woman smiled, bright and lovely.

 

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Melitha. Though the circumstances leave a lot to be desired,” she acknowledged in her modulated— _trained_ —voice and French accent. “How are you getting on here, so far?”

 

Snorting, Melitha finally looked away from those curious eyes and that creeping sense of familiarity. “I’m . . . adjusting,” she allowed tersely, shoveling a spoonful of porridge into her mouth, so as to have an excuse not to answer any more questions.

 

“Aren’t we all?” Leliana snorted delicately, as different from Sera’s loud, scoffing snorts as could be. “At any rate, I have been here for a while, so if you have any questions you don’t wish to ask the staff for whatever reason, feel free to ask me.”

 

Managing to nod once, brusquely, but not ungraciously at this kind offer, Melitha continued to fiddle with the last of her porridge, wondering almost idly where the pretty-loony young woman was and if she’d bothered with breakfast. She hadn’t been the meals-room when Melitha arrived, but then, quite a few patients had already eaten and gone well before Melitha had stepped foot out of her room. Sera may have been among them.

 

Though, Melitha rather doubted it, as the girl was, tits, hips, and arse aside, rather bony. . . .

 

Frowning, Melitha purposely winnowed her mind away from the pretty-loony girl . . . unsuccessfully, as it turned out, for the very next, porridge-flecked words from her mouth were:

 

“Sera Emmald.” When Leliana quirked one elegant, auburn brow, Melitha fought a blush and looked away. “What can you tell me about her?”

 

#

 

“So . . . how ya doin’, kid? They treatin’ ya okay? Need me to sneak ya in a file inside a pie?”

 

Melitha huffed, glaring coolly at her only friend in the world—more like a brother, really.

 

That inconvenient truth didn’t change the fact that she was right brassed-off at him for having her stashed in the loony-bin, however.

 

When Melitha didn’t answer Varric Tethras’s joke, the outrageously successful young author—head of several Top Ten to Watch aspiring authors’ lists—let his charming smile slip, his rugged face going unexpectedly solemn. He leaned on the table between them with a sigh.

 

“I take it, then, that you’re still mad at me,” he noted dryly, but seriously, too. Melitha, arms crossed over her chest, merely continued to slouch back in her chair and stare holes into Varric until he sighed again, running a hand over his fashionably shaggy blond hair and leaning back, himself. “Right. The ol’ silent-treatment. Classic.”

 

Melitha rolled her eyes and looked away, around the visiting-room at the back of the first-floor of the facility. It was spacious, yet cozy and comfortable. Welcoming. Like being in someone’s—large—living room, rather than the visiting area of a funny-farm.

 

There were big, squashy couches and chairs against the walls, and at least fifteen round tables that could comfortably seat three, perhaps four if they were especially fond of each other. And a dozen of those tables were occupied.

 

According to Leliana, there were even more visitors for the patients of Eight Winds in the afternoon session than in the morning. The facility held visiting hours from eleven to twelve-thirty, then again from four-thirty until six, with dinner at a prompt quarter-of.

 

Nonetheless, hearing her name called from the visitation roster had surprised Melitha greatly. Though she had known whom it would be waiting to see her. There was no one else in Melitha’s life who cared enough to visit her in a fancy lunatic asylum—let alone spend the money to put her there.

 

Most of the other loonies seemed happy, or at least relieved to have visitors. Melitha was torn between relief and rage. _Perhaps_ , she thought wearily, _I_ am _loony, after all. My mood fluctuates so from moment to moment, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, anymore. No wonder Varric thinks I’ve gone mad_. . . .

 

Sighing, herself, Melitha took one last look around the homey room, with its papered walls, eclectically-mismatched wooden furniture, and wall-to-wall deep-pile carpeting. The paintings on the walls were all peaceful landscapes: seasides, fields of flowers, gazebos in gardens, and the like. It was all so tranquil and anodyne, it made Melitha want to spit.

 

So, she turned back to Varric, who was watching her with concern and guilt. It was the guilt that finally decided Melitha’s shifting mood—tamped-down the rage in favor of stoking her own relief. And worry.

 

“The silent-treatment is no more than you deserve, little man,” she muttered waspishly, only for Varric’s big, bright, toothy grin to shine out again, the crow’s feet around his light-brown eyes crinkling merrily.

 

“Not little where it counts, Inquisitor,” he said, winking and chuckling. Melitha rolled her eyes again.

 

“Ugh. You mean your ego? Yes, I’m afraid I would have to agree. It’s bloody _massive_ ,” she retorted sharply, scowling. She seemed to do so quite often, lately. “And I _told_ you to stop calling me that. It was old when I was nine, and now, it’s practically senile.”

 

Varric laughed. “I’ll stop calling you _Inquisitor_ when you quit getting all bent outta shape over it.” Pausing thoughtfully, he rubbed his fashionably stubbled chin. “So, probably never, then?”

 

Melitha huffed and recrossed her arms. “I’m still white-hot angry at you.”

 

Varric nodded, gone instantly solemn once again. “As well you should be, Meli. But I hope that even now, some part of you can understand why I had to do it. Or _will understand_ at some point down the line. When Docs Anders and Giselle get you . . . sorted out.”

 

“I don’t need _sorting out_!” Melitha declared in a hissing whisper. Varric gave her such an incredulous look, she flushed and looked away once more. “I _don’t_ need sorting out,” she repeated sullenly, under her breath.

 

Leaning forward a bit more, Varric attempted to catching her gaze. He finally did when she relented with another huff, this one even more offended and truculent.

 

“Kiddo,” he began gently, and Melitha gave him a two-fingered salute.

 

“I’m only three years younger than _you_ , Varric Tethras.”

 

“Three and a half,” he corrected almost primly. This time, Melitha just gave him one finger. “Anyway,” he went on with labored patience. “This’s been a long time comin’, Meli. A _long_ time. I mean . . . you’d’ve died three days ago if Cullen hadn’t gotten worried about you after the cemetary.”

 

“ _Cullen_? Worried about _me_?” Melitha snorted in disbelief. “Right. I’ll have you know I expect to see pigs go flying past the windows at any second!”

 

“Listen, kid—”

 

“Cullen Rutherford _hates_ me, Varric. With good reason. It’s _my_ fault he and his future wife nearly _died_ in a fire _I_ should’ve prevented.”

 

“It’s _not_ your fault, Melitha. Why can’t you understand that?” Varric asked, sounding more wounded than he had since he’d visited her in hospital after the fire. “Why can’t you _believe_ that? You’re _not_ responsible for what _she_ did in a fit of—jealousy or insanity or rage or what-the-fuck- _ever_ possessed her that night! You didn’t fall asleep on the job or let the mission slip—you were _not_ your sister’s keeper!”

 

“Clearly.”

 

“I mean you _never_ _were_!” Varric’s large, rough hands clenched around nothing, balled into fists on the table . . . before he released the fists and linked his fingers calmly, belying his previous tone. “I know that. Cullen and Josephine know that. The only one who doesn’t know that is _you_.”

 

Melitha lapsed into a sulky, recalcitrant silence once more, staring Varric down. But he gave as good as he got— _better_ , even, for Melitha was the first to look away. Varric heaved another sigh, tired and almost . . . hopeless.

 

“Maybe . . . maybe it was selfish of me to fight so hard to keep you here, when it’s obvious you want nothing more than to go,” he said quietly, staring down at his hands. Then he looked up at Melitha again, his eyes swimming with unshed tears. “But ya gotta understand, kid. Ya just _gotta_ . . . you’re _all_ I have left.”

 

Melitha winced and Varric spread his hands as if laying all his cards on the table. “I love ya. More than you’ll ever know. And I _don’t_ wanna lose you like I lost Cassie and the others.”

 

Shaking her head and fighting tears of her own, Melitha licked her chapped lips. “I . . . Varric, I . . . there’s still Cullen and Josie? Surely they don’t blame _you_ for anything that happened. . . .”

 

“Ahh,” Varric dismissed, waving his hand. His expression was rueful and hurt. “Josie’s a sweetheart, like she’s always been. But Cullen . . . you’re not entirely wrong about him. He doesn’t _hate_ you or me, but . . . we remind him of a painful time in his life. He lost as much as we did and nearly lost the woman he loves, to boot. So, it’s easier for him to love us from afar. To put anything that reminds him of what was lost behind him.” Varric shrugged. “If that’s what gets him through the days and nights, then more power to him.”

 

“No,” Melitha protested, looking down at her own hands, which were large—though not as large as Varric’s—with square palms and long, blunt fingers. “You’re wrong. Maybe not regarding how Cullen feels about _you_ , but definitely about how he feels for me. He can’t stand the sight of me, and I can’t say that I blame him. In fact, most days, I’m right there with him.” One traitor-tear rolled down Melitha’s left cheek and even though she dashed it away impatiently, another followed. And another. And another. “You know, I hadn’t been to see their graves in years? Not Cassandra’s or Merrill’s, or any of the littles?”

 

“Meli . . .you can’t wear a hair-shirt forever. . . .”

 

“Not because I didn’t want to,” she hurried to say, eyes widening as more tears fell. “I just . .  . I knew I didn’t deserve the comfort of seeing them at rest. Of knowing that they were probably in a better place. I didn’t do anything to save them in life, so I don’t deserve any comfort now that they’re gone.” Wiping her face again with absent, but ultimately futile swipes, she laughed, mirthless and waterlogged. “So, of course, on the day I somehow managed to convince myself that . . . maybe I _could_ accept at least _that_ comfort, at last, who should I find at Cassandra’s graveside? _Cullen-fucking-Rutherford_!”

 

“Ahhh, kiddo,” Varric breathed, covering her stationary right hand with his own warm one. The temperature difference was marked and startling. “Cullen can be . . . an asshole. Even unintentionally, sometimes. But whatever he may have said, however . . . insensitive it may have been, I can assure you that he didn’t mean for you to go home and swallow a handful of powerful sedatives.”

 

“What a man means and what he _wants_ can be two different things.”

 

Varric squeezed her hand tight. “You’re all I got, kid. All the family I have left in the world. And if I’d gotten home even ten minutes later, you’d’ve been beyond help.”

 

“Can you honestly say that wouldn’t have been best for all involved?” Melitha asked.

 

“I can. But you’re not gonna believe the truth no matter how many times I tell you.” Varric sounded so sad and downcast, Melitha felt even more guilty and miserable than she’d been feeling.

 

“I’m . . . sorry, Varric,” she whispered shakily, looking down at her hands once more. They’d always been capable and clever, despite their size. Even Tali had used to say there was _magic_ in Melitha’s hands. Nothing would ever stay broken if Melitha could get her hands on it and a few minutes to figure out how it was _supposed_ to be working. She’d fixed everything from broken toys—Krem had been a cruel little beast to his action figures and cars . . . so had Rocky, though in a different way than Krem; _Rocky’s_ destruction had come from over-curiosity and experimentation—to the industrial stove that’d fed children in the Chantry Home for decades.

 

If not for the fire, it’d probably still be chugging along.

 

“I’m sorry for . . . everything,” she added in a voice as tiny as it was wrecked. Varric took her hand again, squeezing it so gently, but with a fierce tenderness.

 

“I know ya are, Melitha. I know. Thing is,” he said softly. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Things to regret? Yes. Your life and Tali’s— _all of our lives_ , from Hawke’s to little Krem’s, were fucked from the start. We’ve got regrets that go back to the moment we were born, I suspect. But guilt?” Shaking his head, Varric pulled her hand up to his face and kissed it, lingering for a few moments with closed eyes. “You’ve never hurt anyone in your life, kid. And certainly, not on purpose.”

 

Sniffling, Melitha let out a shuddering breath. “I hurt Tali, didn’t I? So bad, that she felt she had no other recourse than. . . .”

 

“If _your_ happiness hurt Tali, then that was _her problem_. She just chose to be an asshole, and make it everyone else’s, too.”

 

For a few moments, Varric both looked and sounded bitter and angry.  Then he met Melitha’s gaze and let go of her hand with a sad sigh. Her freed hand made a tight fist, clenching and almost painful, before relaxing.

 

“I stole what should’ve been hers.” It was the first time Melitha had said it aloud in any way since right after the fire . . . those first numb, aching, horrified days in hospital, drifting in and out of drugged unconsciousness, answering the questions of police officers and counselors. . . .

 

Now, Melitha scratched her scarred arm reflexively: a nervous tell Varric noticed and always had.

 

“You can’t steal what’s _already_ yours, kiddo. And Merrill was _always_ _yours_ . . . heart and soul. Anyone with eyes could see it. Even Tali.” Leaning in even closer, Varric held her gaze steadily, his own steely and hard. “You believing otherwise—that you somehow conned or tricked her into loving you over Talitha—is both unworthy of you and disrespectful to Merrill’s memory.”

 

For more than a minute, Melitha could only gape at Varric. The whole time, he merely held her gaze, his own never wavering.

 

“I knew from the that first hospital visit after the fire that I couldn’t save you from yourself, Little Meli, much as I wished I could. Redemption is a self-serve sort of verb.” Varric shrugged casually, but seemed tense under that relaxed façade. “But that doesn’t mean there _isn’t_ something out there or some _one_ who can _inspire_ you to _save yourself_. A friend or lover, project or cause. Something. You have to look for it and when you find it, _grab onto_ it.”

 

Grimacing a pained smile, Melitha squeezed Varric’s hand back, then freed hers. “There’s nothing like that for me, Varric. I have no other friends, and there hasn’t been anyone since Merrill . . . I have no causes, talents, or hobbies. No anything. All I ever had was Tali and Merrill, and the other Chantry kids.”

 

“You have your hands and your heart,” Varric corrected her firmly. “They’re big and strong and capable . . . good at fixing broken things. That’s more than a lotta people have goin’ for ‘em.”

 

“Are you saying I should become a mechanic, perhaps? Tinker with and rebuild old cars and lorries, and such?”

 

“If that’s where your bliss takes you, sure.” Varric grinned again and, despite her determination to wallow in despair, Melitha’s spirits lifted, slightly. Lifting spirits and touching hearts had always been two of Varric’s strongest gifts. It was those talents that had always made him such a popular writer and storyteller. “But what I was getting at was . . . fixer, fix thyself. Make _yourself_ your project and go to town.”

 

“What if I don’t care to fix myself? What if . . . what if I don’t _deserve_ to be fixed?” Melitha asked quietly. Varric’s grin turned into a crooked half-smile.

 

“Then, my _dear_ Inquisitor, you fix _someone else_.”

 

Frowning thoughtfully, Melitha opened her mouth to say . . . something. She had no idea what. But before she could find out, a motion near the entryway to the visiting room caught her eye. She looked beyond Varric’s brawny, wide shoulder and found herself staring past the other tables between them and the entrance, at the pretty-loony girl from yesterday. . . .

 

Sera Emmald.

 

The girl’s steely, mad eyes scanned the room, narrowing as they searched and searched . . . and then finally landed on Melitha.

 

“Oi! Tadwinks!” she called, lowering her head angrily and squaring her slim shoulders. She was wearing a long, red-orange-and-pink tie-dyed shirt that went down almost to her knobby knees, and under that, yellow and black stretch-pants that ended mid-calf. On her feet were broken-in, off-white ballet shoes.

 

At her angry, loud hail, everyone’s head turned, including Varric’s. Melitha flushed and half-stood as Sera stalked toward her, half-prowl and half-swagger, her face scrinched-up and intense.

 

“Friend of yours?” Varric asked laconically, glancing at Melitha, then back at a fast approaching Sera. Then, Varric did a double-take back at Melitha, eyeing her far too keenly. “Maker be praised, Meli, are . . . are you _blushing_?”

 

“No, I’m not.” She straightened, and glowered briefly, but thunderously down at her oldest friend then squared her own shoulders as Sera skirted one final table to get to theirs. “Perhaps I have a fever.”

 

“Perhaps you do.” She could see the corner of Varric’s mouth twitch in the periphery of her vision. Then all she was seeing was Sera Emmald’s pretty-loony— _angry_ —face. The other young woman didn’t stop until she was in Melitha’s personal bubble, smelling of herbs and mint, and glaring up at her. She started to speak, blinked, then gave Melitha an assessing once-over.

 

“ _Wuff_! You’re _well_ -taller than I thought,” she said with surprise and appreciation, then bit her lip with fetching uncertainty. “All broad shoulders I wanna hold onto while I climb you like a tree—an’ I _hate_ trees. Except apple trees. And palm trees. Never been to California, me. But I _will_ _go_ , someday. I fancy the seaside. It smells all salty, like fish and chips.”

 

Melitha’s eyebrows shot up. Then she shook her head and sighed. “Right, then. That made all the sense.”

 

“Aren’tcha gonna introduce us, Inquisitor?” Varric asked with barely-disguised amusement. Melitha flushed even deeper, but brazened it out.

 

“No, I’m _not_. Was there something I could help you with, Miss Emmald?”

 

Sera’s eyes widened, then narrowed again, the blatant admiration in her whirling eyes turning back to fury. “Oh, yeah. Nosy arse-biscuit!”

 

Then Melitha just barely had a moment to dance back out of the way of a speedy haymaker. Unfortunately, she didn’t take into account the chair that was directly behind her, and went tumbling backwards with a startled yelp. A moment after that, Sera’s bony, surprisingly solid weight dropped onto Melitha’s hips and pelvis, in a fluid straddle.

 

“What on _Earth_ —” Melitha began breathlessly, trying to sit up. But Sera growled and shoved her shoulders to the floor once more.

 

“Shut it, Shiny!” she gritted out, leaning down until the tip of her high-bridged nose bumped Melitha’s. Her eyes were a blur of steel-blue iris and ink-black pupil. “ _You_ don’t get to talk ‘til I’ve said m’piece, yeah?”

 

And then—before Melitha could process that, let alone respond to it—Sera’s breath, redolent of raspberries and sugar, puffed on her mouth . . . _into_ it, just as Sera’s parted lips crashed against her own with a clack of teeth then an aggressive, sweet-tart swirl of tongue.

 

TBC


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which agreements are reached and everyone puts their foot in it, at least once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

After a shocked few moments of utter submission, Melitha gasped, then moaned as that wild-raspberries sweetness exploded across her tongue and throughout her consciousness. She brought her hands up, vacillating between doing what she _should do_ —place them on Sera’s shoulders to push her away—or . . . doing what she _wanted_ to do: reverse their positions, pin the pretty-loony girl’s body with her own, and give as good as she was getting.

 

The matter was decided for her before her hands could do more than tentatively settle on Sera’s waist. The other girl made a soft, wanting, whimpering sound, leaning harder and more intently into the kiss for a few intense seconds . . . before sitting back and up with a muffled huff.

 

Melitha instinctively tried to follow those raspberry-tasting lips and got punched hard in the right shoulder, for her trouble.

 

“Ow!” she bellowed, glaring up at the lovely, sulky face scowling back down at her. Sera’s plush, pink lips were kiss-swollen and pouty, her eyes wide and a slightly dazed, with dilated pupils. And she was breathing fast and heavy. “What was _that_ for?”

 

Those angry-horny eyes narrowed. “Which? The kiss or the punch?”

 

“Either! Both!” Melitha rubbed her right shoulder—those bony, tiny fists packed a wallop—then attempted to sit up. Surprisingly, Sera let her, hands drifting lightly down Melitha’s sternum—over collar bone, breasts and the top of Melitha’s ribcage—before the other girl crossed her arms defensively. Letting go of Sera’s waist, Melitha braced her hands on the carpeted floor and sat up a bit, careful to leave a relatively respectable space between them, considering that Sera was straddling her thighs. “What’re you—mental?”

 

“Well, _duh_!” Sera snorted and laughed. “We’re in a _mental_ _hospital_! _I’m_ mental, _you’re_ mental, this whole bloody _place_ is mental!”

 

“No, no, I meant—I _meant_ —” Melitha stammered in frustration and Sera stuck her tongue out.

 

“You dunno _what_ you meant, Shiny, admit it.” She smirked, triumphant and smug. “I just kissed some of that uptight, pucker-clench right out of you!”

 

Melitha’s face scrunched up. “I admit no such thing!”

 

“Lookit you—can’t even manage that resting bitch-face you’ve had goin’ since you got here!” Sera guffawed and giggled hysterically. “Oh, he was right, he was! You’re gonna be _loads_ of fun!”

 

Melitha could feel her face settling into a not uncommon, disapproving scowl. “Who, pray tell, is _he_?”

 

Sera rolled her eyes. “ _Cole_ , innit? And, anyway, _shut it_ , Honey-Tongue, _I’m_ the one askin’ the tough questions, ‘round here!”

 

“Well, she’s got ya there, Inquisitor,” Varric noted, startling both young women into remembering his presence. Sera glanced back at him warily.

 

“Right. Dunno who you are, Mr. Highlights-and-Stubble, but this’s an A-and-B convo. Maybe C y’self out of it, yeah?”

 

Varric, eyes twinkling with undisguised mirth, held up his hands in surrender, then mimed zipping his lips shut, ignoring Melitha’s pleadingly mouthed: _A little help, here, Varric!_

 

Then Sera was turning back to Melitha, her face grim and suspicious. “Now, since we’ve got the preliminaries done—found out if there’s any _PHWOAR_! between you and me . . . and there _well_ -is, no problem on _that_ count—it’s time to find out whether I can trust you, yeah?”

 

Melitha blinked. Then scoffed defensively. “I’m _plenty_ trustworthy—not that that’s either here or there!”

 

“Oh, I’d say it’s here, there, and _everywhere_ , Shiny, since you’ve been playin’ ‘dozer and diggin’ up my dirt.”

 

Another blink, this one confused. “ _What_?” Melitha asked. Sera rolled her eyes again.

 

“Is there some reason you’re talkin’ to the other loonies about me? Cole and Leliana, and them?” Sera questioned with strained patience, as if speaking to a dense child. Melitha blanched, caught out.

 

“I—I—” she started to say. Sera huffed and crossed her arms.

 

“Not off to a runnin’ start, are you, Tadwinks?”

 

“I—”

 

“Already said that, like, a bunch of times.”

 

“You—”

 

“I’ll bite: that’s a new one.”

 

“Damnit, Sera, just—be quiet a moment, and let me _think_!” Melitha blurted out, bobbing up a bit more to place her hands on Sera’s arms with a gentleness that seemed to surprise them both. After a few startled seconds, she was rubbing Sera’s wiry biceps with her thumbs, slow and soothing. Sera’s angry gaze even flickered uncertainly, the slight sneer curving the left side of her mouth slipping down into a frown . . . the deep furrow of her brow relaxing a bit. “Or do you not care about an answer to your question?”

 

“I . . . of course, I care. Care _too much_ , me,” Sera admitted in a low, somewhat miserable voice, her gaze dropping to the empty space between them. Then she made a frustrated sound and glared up at Melitha again, shrugging her arms free of Melitha’s light grasp. “But it’s not rocket-science, is it? No need to _think_ about an answer, is there? At least not if you’re honest. _Thinkin’_ about answers is for _liars_. And I don’t like liars.”

 

Sighing, Melitha once more braced her hands on the carpet, just behind and to either side of her body. “Thinking about answers isn’t _always_ about lying. Sometimes, it’s about tact. Or merely collecting one’s thoughts, if one has been . . . startled by a question.”

 

Sera glared some more . . . then rolled her eyes and pouted. “Alright. We’ll go with that. For now. So, which is it? You bein’ tactful—which is just a prettier kind of lie, innit?—or startled?”

 

“Some from Column A and a _lot_ from Column B,” Melitha said dryly, shooting a quelling glance at Varric when he covered a laugh with a cough. “You’ve startled me several times in the past few minutes, alone.”

 

“Mm, yeah,” Sera agreed wistfully, her pout softening into a tiny smile, her eyes warming. “ _PHWOAR_!”

 

Fighting a fierce blush and a big grin, Melitha cleared her throat. “Quite. So, to answer your question as tactfully as I may . . . Cole was the one who brought you up when I tried to thank him for leaving dinner for me. He told me it was actually _your_ doing, so, thank _you_ for that.”

 

“No skin off my butt,” Sera said warily, biting her lower lip. Then she snorted and giggled. “Ha! Butt-skin!”

 

“And as for Leliana . . . she offered to answer any questions I had that I might not feel comfortable asking the doctors or staff. The first thing that popped into my head was, appropriate or not, _you_.”

 

Her brow furrowing again, Sera leaned in a bit. “And why’s that?”

 

Melitha shrugged. “Because you’d been on my mind since Cole told me it was you who’d brought me dinner while I was . . . indisposed.”

 

“You mean while you were busy checkin’-in to the La-La-Land Hotel?”

 

“Yes,” Melitha sighed, speaking plainly as she truly accepted that tact, for all that she’d spent her life cultivating it, would do her less than no good with Sera. It would either go over the other girl’s head, or come across as lies or prevarication. “I believe the clinical term is _dissociating_.”

 

“Po-tay-to, to-may-to,” Sera dismissed loftily. Melitha almost smiled.

 

“Anyway, you . . . were kind to me. Thoughtful and concerned. Even after I was less than pleasant to you earlier. I wanted to understand why.”

 

Sera gave her a blank look. “ _Why_ I did a nice thing for you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Sera frowned, but not angrily, just pensively. “‘S’ere have to be a _reason_ behind doin’ a nice thing for someone who maybe needs some nice things in their life?” she asked, her eyes flickering and her face gentling into a look of understanding and compassion that took Melitha’s breath away.

 

“Yes,” she answered without thinking or searching for a _tactful_ way to say it. Then, realizing how it sounded, she flushed and looked down. “I mean . . . it’s been my experience that few people do kindnesses for those they don’t know. Or even for those they _do_ know. Which, I suppose, makes me all the more curious about those rare exceptions who prove the rule.”

 

Sera didn’t reply for a minute, the weight of her measuring look heavy, indeed, on Melitha’s head. Then she reached out to brush cool, light fingers down Melitha’s cheek, to her jaw and chin. Finally, she tilted Melitha’s face up. When Melitha had no choice but to meet Sera’s steely eyes, she found a startling empathy and warmth there . . . kindness that seemed as boundless as it was deep.

 

“So, you’re sayin’ that . . . I do somethin’ nice for you and _your_ first reaction is to ferret out a _reason_ for me bein’ nice at all?”

 

Melitha’s brow furrowed in consternation. “Well, when you put it like that. . . .”

 

“Makes _you_ sound a right tit, dunnit?” Sera said sharply, then sighed, her fingers dropping away from Melitha’s chin. “Is _do unto others_ such a foreign concept, where you’re from, then?”

 

Closing her eyes and thinking of the first eight years of hers and Tali’s lives, living hand to mouth with their mother and older brother—and then just their older brother after their mother didn’t come home from a job—Melitha shrugged jerkily, her mouth tightening. “I’d . . . rather not talk about it.”

 

“Oh, so it’s alright diggin’ when it’s _my_ dirt, but when it’s _yours_ , suddenly we’re all backin’ away and bein’ _tactful_?” Sera mocked. Melitha shook her head, fighting not to let memories from two lives ago swamp her and drag her under.

 

“I . . . apologize for asking Leliana about you,” Melitha said breathlessly, eyes squeezed shut, one hand come up to pinch the bridge of her nose. That did nothing to stave off the memories of life before the Chantry Home took her and Tali in, so she removed her hand and opened her eyes, blinking away tears of frustration and sadness. Sera was watching her with awkward concern. But focusing on the other girl’s face seemed to drown out other issues clamoring for Melitha’s besieged attention, so _focus_ , she did. “I really only wanted her general impressions of you. And you have my word that she told me nothing, other than if I had questions about _you_ , then I should _ask_ them of you directly, and form my _own_ opinions.”

 

“Damn right, you should. Yeah. Um.” Sera’s brow furrowed again, this time in confusion. “Um. Right, so, I’m not used to people admitting they’re wrong to me or makin’ such pretty apologies for behaving like an arse. So, gimme a moment to process, yeah? Doc Anders is always goin’ on about how a body needs _time to process_ the surprisin’ shit.” A nervous laugh followed this admission and Sera cleared her throat, swinging her right leg over Melitha’s thighs, kneeling to Melitha’s left and sitting back on her heels to regard the other woman curiously. “That Leliana’s a bit of alright, though. Listens more than she talks and knows more than she lets on. And she’s easy on the eyes, too. Like she stepped out of a magazine. An’ I _don’t_ necessarily mean one of the naughty ones, perv, so shut it.”

 

“I said nothing.” Varric held up his hands peaceably once more when Sera shot him a stern, disapproving look.

 

“But you we’re _thinkin’_ it real loud, and talkin’ shit with your eyes.”

 

“I . . . was talking shit with my _eyes_?” Varric’s thick, blond brows shot up, amused and charmed. Sera made a rude sound and turned back to Melitha, her eyes instantly softening again, going curious and almost fond.

 

“Anyway. I _do_ like you, even though you can be an arse sometimes. I reckon it’s one of them . . . whaddaya call ‘ems Doc Giselle’s always on about. Defense-mechanisms! Yeah! Don’t like people getting’ too close, I can tell. Don’t trust ‘em not to do ya dirty at the first opportunity. I c’n relate. Don’t _agree_ , but I c’n relate.”

 

And with that pronouncement, Sera held out her small, slim hand to Melitha. The latter eyed the offered hand suspiciously before looking back into Sera’s eyes, her own still burning and swimming with the tears that she hadn’t successfully suppressed before.

 

“I don’t need or want your pity, Sera,” she said softly, her voice cracking and creaking with strain. That soft-kind flicker moved through Sera’s gaze and across her features, before a more wry and companionable expression took its place.

 

“Trust me,” she said, giving Melitha a once-over that lingered at several places—some of them twice. “When I look at you or think about you, there’s a bloody _laundry-list_ of things I feel and think. And _none_ of them are pity. I mean . . . _look at you_ , yeah? You’re all . . . you, y’know? Tall and strong and WUFF! And when you’re not being all defensive-mechanism-y, you’re not bad to talk to. Though I’m more of an _action_ -type, myself. As in _gettin’ some_. Get it? Gettin’ some action? Because, y’know . . . it means bumpin’ bits, an’ that.”

 

Eyes gone wide in the face of this cheery, sincere blurt of word-salad, Melitha glanced at Sera’s hand again before reaching out to take it with wondering trust. A few seconds later, she was being tugged upward and rolling with it—rolling to her feet and somehow managing not to overbalance and crush Sera, and possibly Varric, too.

 

With them both standing, Sera was more than a foot shorter than Melitha.  It put her at about eye-to-breast-level to Melitha, a fact which did not go unnoticed or un-commented-on.

 

“WHOA! So, I’m on-board with dramatic height-differences, now! Didn’t get it, before, but I’m seein’ two huge perks as we speak,” Sera noted, then: “Really, though, if it’s _that_ cold in here, have Mr. Shit-Talker bring you a cardigan, or some’at. ‘S well-distractin when they’re right in my face, y’know?”

 

Resisting the instinct to cover her chest—but unable to resist blushing—Melitha sighed. “Perhaps if you wouldn’t stare at my chest so much, you wouldn’t be so distracted.”

 

Sera smirked. “Well, perhaps if _you_ didn’t stare at _my_ _arse_ so much, _you_ wouldn’t be so distracted, either, Old Lady Smarty-Pants.”

 

Melitha started to make a grand denial, but quickly shut her mouth as she remembered that Sera didn’t like liars. They’d already gotten off on the wrong foot, as it were.

 

“Fine,” she agreed with equanimity. “I won’t stare at your arse and you won’t stare at my breasts. We’ll make a point of respectful eye-contact from here on out.”

 

Blonde brows shooting up, Sera stared at the hand Melitha held out for shaking and snorted once more. “I’m not in the habit of makin’ promises. ‘Specially ones I don’t intend to keep.” When Melitha rolled her eyes and withdrew her hand, Sera grumbled and made a grab for the hand, shaking it fast and earnestly. “Alright, fine! I promise I’ll try not to stare at your tits. Or your nips. Or your hips. Or your arse. Or your shoulders. Or the way your right cheek dimples when you’re fightin’ a smile. Nope. From here on, it’s nothin’ but eye-to-eye. Which, yeah, in’t exactly a chore, since you’ve got such pretty eyes—like, all weird and changin’ colors with the way light hits ‘em. Ha! _Girl with kaleidoscope eyes_!”

 

Melitha blushed, even as her mind reeled under that onslaught of non-sequiturs. “I’m a fan of their earlier work. The psychedelic stuff just confuses me.”

 

“But that’s their _best_ stuff! Not confusin’ at all—it’s lyrics that _mean somethin’_ , yeah? Not just tripe and bollocks about holdin’ hands and Eleanor Roosevelt.”

 

Melitha chuckled and Varric, just behind Sera, opened his mouth to correct her, then promptly shut it before Sera could tell him to, heaving a silent, put-upon sigh.

 

Then Melitha was meeting Sera’s gaze once more, her smile widening as Sera’s deepened and she swayed a bit closer.

 

“So . . . you formin’ any opinions, yet?” she asked slyly. Melitha turned crimson.

 

“I . . . will admit to not being indifferent to your attractiveness . . . and your rather strident brand of charm.”

 

“Erm . . . yeah.” Sera looked less than impressed and behind her, Varric was wincing and mouthing: _“A SWING AND A MISS.”_

 

“By which I mean I find you captivating and lovely,” Melitha added smoothly, executing a slight bow over Sera’s hand, which she was still holding. The other girl’s brows lifted again and she turned a pretty shade of pink. From behind her, Varric grinned, nodded, and gave Melitha a thumbs-up, mouthing: “ _NICE RECOVERY_.”

 

Melitha repressed an eye-roll and focused on Sera again. The other girl was giggling nervously and biting her full lower lip.

 

“Well-well . . . listen to _you_ turnin’ rubbish into butter. . . .” another giggle and wide-eyed, guilelessly sensual look. Melitha swallowed around a suddenly dry throat.

 

“More like butter into rubbish—my words are clumsy and inadequate, as always. I never _was_ the _charming_ twin,” Melitha said bemusedly . . . then her face blanched, and lost all expression as she realized that she’d slipped and, for the first time in years, mentioned Tali to someone who wasn’t Varric.

 

Her blood couldn’t have run colder if it was composed of nitrogen.

 

Meanwhile, Sera blinked at Melitha with keen curiosity. “You’re a _twin_? Get out! You mean there’s _two of you_ , walkin’ around, all _PHWOAR-_ and _WUFF-_ like? With the eyes and the shoulders and the dimples? Brilliant! Is _she_ mental, too?”

 

“Ah . . . _Sera_ , is it? Yeah, that’s kind of a no-fly zone for Meli,” Varric began just a touch nervously. “So, just ix-nay on the in-tway uestions-quay, ‘kay?”

 

“No, it’s not ‘ _kay_ , Mr. It-shay-alker-Tay,” Sera said with distracted irritation, her assessing eyes never leaving Melitha’s ashen face. “If she don’t wanna talk about it, she c’n tell me herself. She’s a grown woman—or so I assume from all the—” she gestured at Melitha’s tall, sturdy, stock-still form. “Don’t need anyone speakin’ for her. Not you, and not me, either. In’t that right, Shiny? _Shiny_? _Where y’goin’?_ ”

 

“Ah, jeez— _Melitha_ —” Varric called after her, but Melitha didn’t answer. She was too busy making a mad-dash for the relative safety, silence, and seclusion of her room, dodging around tables and furniture, and patients saying tearful good-byes to their visiting loved ones.

 

TBC


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melitha takes an unexpected trip down Memory Lane . . . and another jaunt into the Fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Modern AU. TRIGGER: Mental illness, implied child sexual abuse, mentions of murder-suicide, pyromania. Tags and warnings to be added as we go.

Numb, but with stark panic nibbling the edges of that numbness, Melitha shut the door to her room and leaned against it, breathing hard despite not being winded even a little from her dash up to the third floor. She would’ve locked the door behind her, but none of the patient’s doors had locks. So, she paced to her barred window, then back to the door. Window. Door. Sat on her bed. Bounced to feet again. Door. Window. . . .

 

Finally, as Melitha was staring blankly out the window, emptying her mind for a trip beyond the Veil—maybe for keeps, this time—there was a knock on her door, gentle and brief.

 

“Melitha?” a kind, thickly-accented voice called from beyond the door. “Are you in there? Your friend, Mr. Tethras is worried about you. As am I. . . .”

 

A few moments later the door to Melitha’s private room opened silently. Dr. Giselle entered, her low, burgundy heels clicking quietly on the tiled floor. They were good quality, though not the best, Melitha knew as she watched them pass her bed—under which she was hidden—on the way to her closet.

 

The closet door opened and shut quickly—Melitha wasn’t in there, and Dr. Giselle clearly wasn’t interested in snooping—and the doctor heaved a soft sigh.

 

“Oh, Melitha,” she murmured heavily, her sensible shoes clicking back toward the door to the room. “Poor child.”

 

The door to Melitha’s room shut gently and Melitha was once again alone. Not that, in the safe, stuffy-dark of under-bed and the twitchy, fetid-dark of the locked cellar where she kept her _bad_ memories. The ones even _Varric_ had no idea about. The ones she told herself that _she_ had no idea about.

 

The ones that’d started . . . everything.

 

And by the time the door opened then shut again—off-white ballet shoes padding past the bed, toward the closet . . . then back to the bed, where they paused, the left one tapping—Melitha was _gone_. Through the Veil and deep, deep into the Fade.

 

#

 

_“Meli?”_

_Meli Anne Adaar shuddered and shrunk in on herself even more. The attic of their small home was cluttered and junky with tons of old rubbish, most of which had already been there when the Adaar family had moved in, two years prior. Everything was slip-covered and drop-clothed, dusty and webbed, rusted and corroded._

_Yet Meli had never felt safer anywhere else in the New House, as she always thought of it. Especially since Mum’d started bringing home new “uncles” every other month._

_Usually, those uncles were big and brawny men, much like Da had been. But unlike Da, they were always only_ superficially _nice to Herah Adaar’s children—at least at first. Then, a few weeks in, those façades would start to slip more and more, until they’d start screaming, or laying hands, or—as one angry “uncle” had done to Meli and Tali’s older brother, Tannim—throwing punches._

_And Tannim, lean, but already nearly as tall as their Da had been, and equally broad of shoulder and large of fists, had defended himself with a brutal, efficient confidence that’d sent the uncle running—staggering—off into the night, bloody and spitting teeth._

_Their mother had raged at Tannim, who’d stood as still as a monolith, Tali hugging his leg and sobbing, Meli huddled in a corner of the kitchen and watching everything with big eyes. Raged and wept and eventually stormed out, leaving Tannim to silently make supper for his seven-years-old sisters and himself. He’d burnt both the beans and the toast, and then covered it all in runny catsup and marmite, for Tali and Meli, respectively. His own, he ate bare, his jaw tight and a vein in his temple throbbing in time with his chewing._

_Tali, soothed by the familiarity of beans on toast with loads of catsup, hadn’t noticed. But Meli, always watchful, and as silent as Tannim could be, had kept an eye on her kind and loyal, but mercurial brother._

_After that, Herah Adaar had started bringing home a_ slightly _better class of “uncle.” Uncles with gainful employment and controllable tempers. Uncles who didn’t yell or hit or condescend. Uncles who also never held their mother’s fickle interest like the rotten ones had._

_For almost a year, things had gone relatively well, since the incident when Uncle Tommy had struck Tannim and blacked his eye. The few uncles since then had been blessedly dull and fearful of the large, seething young man with coldly burning eyes and the unmistakable looks of his late father._

_And then . . . there’d been Uncle Alrik._

_Alrik Templar had never once, in the four months he’d been coming around the New House, laid a hand on Herah’s three children. But then, he’d hardly had to. He was, Tannim had said of him darkly, the sort of man who could cut without knives and hit without fists. That his words were worse than poison, and had a way of burrowing into the brain like earwigs or some other crawly, slimy things._

_It went without saying that Tannim hadn’t liked Uncle Alrik from the moment Herah had brought him home, in his Armani suit, with his fancy, foreign car, and proper, northern accent. Meli hadn’t liked him, either, despite his posh manners and courtly behavior to their mother. His gaze was as icy and pale a blue as a winter sky, cruel and acquisitive and flat. His smile was a chill thing that never touched his chill eyes. And those eyes had a way of lingering on Meli that neither she nor Tannim cared for._

_Tali, of course, noticed none of this. She was and had always been self-centered and easily charmed, like their mother. And Uncle Alrik tended to flatter and cozen, and to bring little gifts for his girlfriend’s twin daughters that Tali would lose her magpie-mind over. Meli would accept hers politely, then later give them to Tali, who would look at her as if she’d gone mental, then snatch the trinket and squirrel it away somewhere._

_“Don’t let him take you_ anywhere _alone,” Tannim soon took to warning them both, though he was really warning Tali, since Meli’s wariness around all of the uncles, but especially this one, was even higher than Tannim’s. “Don’t let him . . . if he_ ever _touches you in_ any way _, you tell me, right? Not Mum, or a teacher or any of that shite._ Me _. And I’ll take care of him,” their brother—only fifteen, and already built like a man, with a man’s strength and rage—had commanded darkly, his heavy brow furrowed and his light-brown eyes snapping with anger. “I’ll make sure you’re the_ last thing _he_ ever _touches.”_

_Tali, not really listening, would nod and continue admiring whatever latest trinkets Uncle Alrik had brought them. Meli, meeting Tannim’s frustrated, angry eyes would nod solemnly, and shudder at the thought of Uncle Alrik punching her in the eye, like Uncle Tommy had punched Tannim last year._

_It was_ the worst _thing she could possibly imagine. But then, no one had ever accused Meli Adaar of being long on imagination. No,_ that _was Tali’s job._

_This lack of creativity where cruelty was concerned was what had led to Meli being crammed into the attic crawl-space, watching as Tali made a face and poked her head up into the tight, fusty little room._

_Her big, hazel eyes widened when they fell on Meli. “What’s wrong with you?_ You’re _usually all smiles when you’re hiding in this manky old dungeon!”_

_Meli shook her head and closed her eyes, burying her face in the arms wrapped around the tops of her scarred, knobby knees._

_After a minute—and many sulky grumbles—Tali was kneeling in front of her, one hand on Meli’s long, dusty, messy hair._

_“What’s wrong, Meli?” she asked again, sounding genuinely worried this time. Meli sniffled, but didn’t answer. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, and would never risk telling big-mout Tali. “Is it that big boy from fifth form? The one with the lazy eye who’s always shoving you?”_

_Meli shook her head. “No.”_

_“I think it_ is _,” Tali persisted, scowling. “I think I should tell Tannim about him._ He’ll _make that tosser stop.”_

_“No!” Meli looked up, panicked, and clamped a hand over her sister’s mouth. Tali’s eyes widened more and she huffed, then licked Meli’s palm, knowing it’d cause Meli to instantly pull her hand away. Which it did._

_“Why not?” Tali demanded, crossing her arms and tilting her head suspiciously._

_“Just—don’t. Please, don’t, Tali.”_

_“Give me one good reason,” Tali said snootily, cruelly, and Meli sighed._

_“Because . . . Tannim’d do something_ awful _to Bevain, and Bevain . . . is a plank, but no more than usual. He doesn’t deserve to be put into hospital for something he didn’t do.”_

_“It’d be comeuppance for all the things he’s done to you_ before _. Not to mention all the other kids in our form.” Tali shrugged dismissively, completely uninterested in Bevain’s guilt or innocence. “Anyways, if it’s not Bevain McPike, then who is it? And what’ve they done?”_

_“No one. No one’s done nothing,” Meli insisted stonily, meeting Tali’s gaze until, for once, the other girl backed down and looked away, frowning uncertainly._

_“Well . . . alright, then. If you say so.” Turning on her now-dusty knees to crawl back to the narrow ladder leading down to the third floor, Tali paused a moment to say: “Oh, Mum says Uncle Alrik’s going to be watching us again this afternoon! That’s what I came up here to tell you!”_

_Meli went cold in the face of her sister’s glee. “B-but . . . why? Isn’t Mum—”_

_“Mum’s got a last-minute call. She won’t be home till tomorrow morning, again. And Tannim is off at Benny Hazlett’s till curfew. They’re probably nicking vodka from Benny’s Mum’s liquor cabinet.” Another unconcerned, Tali-shrug as she climbed down the ladder. “Whatever. Tuesday, Uncle Alrik said the next time he saw us, he’d ring us matching lockets, remember? I’ll bet they’re real gold, too!”_

_Listening to her sister’s bold, loud footsteps till they disappeared from ear-shot—which meant not till Tali had reached the kitchen, which was at the back of the ground-floor—Meli closed her eyes once more. But that didn’t stop tears from leaking out. She remembered well the last time Uncle Alrik had babysat her—only for a few hours, during which Tannim had been at his job and Mum’d had to take Tali to see her psychiatrist—and wanted nothing less than she wanted a repeat of_ last time _. . . ._

_Of Uncle Alrik’s voice and hot breath in her ear, his scent in her nostrils . . . his kisses on her forehead—a mockery of the way Da used to kiss her and Tali every night before . . . before he died—and his_ hands: _everywhere they shouldn’t be. . . ._

_No. Best not to think about it. Thinking about it only made her sad and scared, angry and weepy—made her feel as if she was coming apart at the seams both physically and mentally. Like she was going_ mad _._

_And if she went mad_ enough _, what if she . . . let slip what had happened? What if_ Tannim _heard, and . . ._ did something _?_

_Uncle Alrik had told her in detail, in hushed, heated whispers as he held her on his lap, what happened to boys like Tannim when they went to grown-up jail. And no one, looking at six-foot-four, two-hundred twelve pounds Tannim, would fail to send him to grown-up jail should he even_ blink _wrong at Uncle Alrik._

_So, Meli forced it all down, as she had been for weeks since the first incident. Forced it down, and did not think of all the_ smaller _incidents since then: the knowing, mocking looks and touches when no one was looking. The threats to keep what was going on a secret lest Tannim do something . . . precipitous, and wind up in grown-up jail for his whole life._

_The promise of more and worse to come, lighting Uncle Alrik’s merciless eyes. . . ._

_But, honestly, nothing could be worse than what had already happened, right? Even if Uncle Alrik punched her right in the eye, like Uncle Tommy had done Tannim? Right?_

_Despite Meli’s best efforts to remain in the attic that afternoon, and hopefully never find out, the universe conspired to prove her wrong in the most awful way._

_#_

_The first time Meli ever_ Faded _, she was gone for most of a night that felt like a brief, but blessed eternity._

_One moment, she was laying, half-naked, on her mother’s bed, trying not to cry and scream as bad things happened to her. The next, she was in a place where nothing was quite real and_ everything _was always shifting . . . a place where she could be_ whatever _she wanted, and talk to people who’d once existed, but didn’t anymore, or people who’d never existed in the_ first place _. All was thought and feeling and_ will _._

_And, ever in the distance of whatever vistas and wonders she found or conjured, conquered or explored, was a tall, black city . . . both intimidatingly frightening and ineffably sad. Just looking at it made her heart hurt for something lost that could perhaps never be regained. And yet, to look in any direction was to see the Black City in the distant periphery._

_Mostly, Meli just tried to ignore it, the way she ignored the echoes and whispers of pain and disgust coming from that Bad Place . . . the place beyond the Fade, where Mums turned their backs and let Uncles do terrible things, and even the_ best _Brothers in the world were powerless to stop any of it._

_In the_ Fade _, she was a powerful warrior. A horned and dangerous sword-swinger for something called the_ Valo-kas _. And there were others there, too. Like her, but not. Smaller, not horned, but dangerous, too: archers and sappers, medics and mages, scouts and spies._

_Together, they were a powerful, proud mercenary band who took jobs fighting the desperate fights no one else could._

_Together . . . they were a_ family _. . . something Meli hadn’t really had since Da’d died. . . ._

_But Meli tried never to think about him. Not when in the Fade. Thoughts of the dead always seemed to bring the Black City closer than she liked it. . . ._

_But even so, even with the Black City looming so near, the Fade was_ far _better than that_ other _Place . . . the Place she’d come from. The Place where her form was static, malleable, and vulnerable. The Place where she was_ weak _and small and—_

_It was sudden, sharp pain that brought Meli back from the Fade. Brought her back to the Place where all Uncles were bad and all Mums loved them,_ anyway _. One moment, she was eyeing the Black City, which seemed to creep closer with every blink . . . the next, she was unable to hold back blinking anymore. Her eyes flew immediately back open to see light-brown ones over her own, wide and worried and scared._

_“Meli?” a soft, low voice rumbled and she smiled, her spirits instantly soaring despite the dull pain radiating from_ down there _, and from her stinging cheek._

_“Da?” she asked, and the familiar, worried gaze was shuttered by a blink. The heavy brow above those eyes furrowed. “No, Da’s . . . Da’s_ dead _. Tannim?”_

_The eyes drew back a bit, just enough for Meli to make out the rest of the face. Not as craggy as Da’s or as strong—finer, more like Mum’s—but the same smile, big and warm. Or it would’ve been if not for the concern that leavened it._

_“‘S right, kiddo.” Tannim’s fingers brushed Meli’s stinging cheek—Tannim had, it turned out, been trying for several minutes to snap Meli out of her Fade, resorting, finally, to slapping her across the face hard. She’d have a hand-shaped bruise for some days to come—tenderly, attempting to soothe her. “Had me scared, you did. You went walk-about and wouldn’t come back.”_

_“Sorry,” Meli apologized quietly, her voice scratchy and hoarse, her throat dry as a desert and clicking like a grandfather clock. “What’s—what’s happening? Where’s Tali? Where’s—” closing her mouth around his name, Meli looked away. “Why’re you home, Tannim?”_

_Meli’s brother sighed, his fingers still brushing her cheek as he blushed. “Benny was drunk an’ bein a plank, innit? I was about to leave, anyway, when Tali called and said I should come home. Said your eyes were open but she couldn’t wake you up. When I got home, I thought no one was here ‘till I walked past Mum’s room, and saw you and Tali on Mum’s bed. . . .” Tannim trailed off unhappily, and Meli turned red with guilt and shame, hot, stinging tears leaking out of her eyes. As memory threatened to swamp her conscious mind, she stuffed it down with ruthless, brutal force._

_She tried to roll away onto her side and could barely move for the hot, lightning-bolt pain that shot through her gut and places decidedly lower, drawing a whimper from her. She felt achy and_ wrong _all over . . . heavy and tired._

_“Meli?” Tannim asked in a tiny, meek voice, tugging up a little on the quilt which covered Meli from shoulders to feet. Meli kept her face turned away, more tears running down her cheeks and nose as she realized that Tannim must have covered her over when he found her. Which meant he’d seen her half-naked and sprawled on the bed, just as Uncle Alrik had arranged her before—_

_Even though she’d cut off the memory at the knees, Meli wept all the harder._

_“Mum didn’t tell me she’d got a last-minute job, and that she was leaving you with him, or I’d have come home straight-away!” Tannim swore roughly. “Bloody_ hell _. . . how long has this been going on, Meli? Why didn’t you_ tell _me?”_

_“Because I . . . I didn’t want you to get mad and_ hurt _him!”_

_“Why-ever not?!” Tannim growled, his pale eyes flashing. A soft sob escaped Meli’s mouth and she trapped several more behind her teeth before they, too, could escape. It was a near thing, though._

_“I didn’t want you to go to_ grown-up _jail! They’d hurt you_ bad _, in there, and it’d be_ all my fault _! Uncle Alrik_ said _!”_

_Tannim was silent for long minutes as Meli fought sobs and sniffles alike, tears blurring her eyes beyond usefulness while everything ached and felt so, so_ wrong _. She didn’t know what’d happened and didn’t want to know. She dreaded the moment she had to move. To get out of the bed that still smelled like her mother (somewhere under the scent of Uncle Alrik). To see herself in the bathroom mirror. . . ._

_“I’m so sorry, Meli,” Tannim whispered, climbing onto the bed with her and pulling her close, rocking her and kissing her hair like Da might’ve done. “How long has he . . . I should_ never _have . . . fuck! I was supposed to_ protect _you! I_ promised _Da I would always look after you and Tali and Mum! And I’ve_ failed _you, and I’ve failed_ Mum _. . . .” his voice cracked, like it hadn’t since he was thirteen. “But don’t you worry, Meli. He’ll never hurt you or anyone else again.”_

_The cold, hard, flat tone caught Meli’s attention and she rolled slowly, gingerly toward her brother, blinking up at his angry face. “Tannim?”_

_“Trust me, Meli. He’ll be taken care of. He’ll never hurt another little girl, ever again,” he repeated, a promise as red as heart’s blood and Meli, for the first time ever—but not the last—was as afraid of her one_ of _her siblings as she was_ for _them._

 

#

 

_If I fell in love with you,/ Would you promise to be true?/ And help me understand?/ ‘Cuz I’ve been in love before,/ And I’ve found that love was more/ Than just holding hands. . . ./ If I give my heart to you,/ I must be sure/ From the very start that you/ Would love me more than her. . . ._

 

The worried, creaking voice had been singing for a while.

 

It’d dogged her steps, acting as both wings and anchor, while she and her current companion ran the gamut of twisted hills and sunken dales of the Fade, hunting demons made of greed and rage and sloth, the Black City lumbering ever to her right, just in the outer ranges of her periphery, moving incrementally nearer while never getting any closer.

 

Until, finally, she stopped, ichor-dripping sword smoking and singing in her hands. Her companion of the moment—a rat that called itself “Mouse”—looked up at her impatiently.

 

“These demons,” it said—or thought at her, since the Fade was ever-silent. “They won’t kill themselves, y’know?”

 

“I know,” Melitha thought back wearily, turning her head just slightly—away from the looming Black City to her right and toward the direction from which the worried singing came. “I know, Mouse, it’s just . . . can you _hear_ it?”

 

“Hear _what_?”

 

Melitha meant to answer, but suddenly felt that she _shouldn’t_. It wasn’t that she didn’t _trust_ Mouse, just that . . . well . . . she _didn’t_ trust Mouse. Even in the Fade, a talking tube-rat seemed more than a tad sketchy. “How many more demons must we kill, here? This place is full of more demons than anyone can slay in a good eternity. What’s the point in bothering any that aren’t trying to kill _me_?”

 

The rat named Mouse sighed, its whiskers twitching. Melitha blinked and the rat was gone. In its place stood a pale man of average height and build, with sharp, clever features and slightly beady dark eyes. He was wearing arcane and archaic robes with strange alchemical symbols on them.

 

“We need to get to a specific demon—the _Kagyath_ —and kill it before it can have _us_ killed,” the man said simply, shrugging. “And it _will_ send other minions after us. Especially once it realizes its chief lieutenant is dead at your hand.”

 

Looking at the smoking remains of the fallen demon she’d just slaughtered—just wisps that were already transparent and insubstantial—Melitha frowned. That worried voice on the wind was still singing to her, but more softly. She could only just make out words:

 

_. . . say ya don’t need no diamond rings,/ And I’ll be satisfied./ Tell me that ya want the kinda things/ Money just can’t buy. . . ._

 

Distracted, she shook her head and carefully pinched the bridge of her nose with the fingers of one gauntleted hand. “Why us?” she murmured absently, cudgeling her cloudy mind to spit out the other obvious questions she nonetheless couldn’t think of. In the Fade, the only part of her brain that was still worth a damn was the part that controlled her instincts for fighting and stealth. “Why . . . _me_?”

 

“The great existential question! To which I reply, as ever: Why _not_?” the rat-man countered, spreading his hands. When Melitha blinked, a rat was scurrying away from her, fast and undulating, leading her deeper into the Fade than she’d ever dared—far beyond where she’d come with the _Valo-kas_ companions of her childhood. “Come! The Kagyath draws no nearer! And I mislike staying still in the open for so long!”

 

Tired, but ready to follow-through—follow the rat-man over hill and through dale, until they faced the Kagyath—Melitha loped onward across the shifting landscape, ignoring the increasing sense of disorientation that dogged her. Weary, though she was, she chased after Mouse with great, stalking strides . . . until the ever-blowing zephyr that carried dust and particles across the scoured, demon-haunted panorama, carried something else to Melitha: that voice, once more . . . and, briefly, stronger than it’d been before.

 

_. . . in the way she moves. . . ./ Attracts me like no other lover. . . ./ Something in the way she wooooooos me./ Don’t wanna leave her now/ . . . Ya know I believe her now. . . ._

 

Without a second thought, or a first, Melitha stopped running. She listened. She smiled. She. . . .

 

. . . sheathed her sword—only, it was a _staff_ , sometimes, too, wasn’t it? A proper _mage’s_ staff? And had been, increasingly, since Tali’d died? Thick as Melitha’s wrist and as tall as _she_ was, almost, with a glowing crystal at the tip that crackled with lightning or fire—and broke into a stumbling, then fleet-footed run back the way they’d come: toward that _voice_ , before Mouse, the sketchy rat-man, could talk her out of it.

 

Like a silent guardian or warden, the Black City—ancient, towering, and always to one’s right—kept up with her. But she didn’t notice, for once. All her mind and heart—all her _being_ —was bent on that sweetly manic, slightly off-key voice singing about taking sad songs and making them better.

 

Singing—in-between the lyrics and some occasional swearing—about coming _home_. . . .

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> HMU on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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